


Hidden

by JamieBenn



Series: Hidden [1]
Category: Teen Wolf (TV), Teen Wolf (TV) RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe, M/M, Major character death - Freeform, Multiverse Theory, Parallel Universe
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-19
Updated: 2014-04-19
Packaged: 2018-01-19 23:59:32
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 9,761
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1489015
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JamieBenn/pseuds/JamieBenn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Stiles dies, and finds himself in a parallel universe.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Start of the Beginning

**Author's Note:**

> This was for Camp NaNoWriMo, and I'm working on a sequel, but this one is more of a prequel to it. (That one will be A/B/O, for the ABO Big Bang. I hope you enjoy!
> 
> This is unbetaed, to all mistakes are my own. (Forgive me for any English/Australianisms, as this has not been checked by an American with knowledge of their own society).

It had happened all of a sudden. The knife had gone through his chest. The  oni didn't even hesitate before it went through his body, cutting through anything in its path. He couldn't do anything. His body froze. He looked in front of him, only to see Scott and Derek staring at him. They'd seen it happen. They couldn't do anything about it. They could only watch as he died. It was the last thing that Stiles saw before everything went black.

He heard beeping, and people shouting different things at him. It made him a little bit upset, to think that these people could be any more louder. That they couldn't have a little bit of compassion for the guy who was stabbed in the chest with a huge fucking blade, that had torn through flesh, and more flesh, just to reach the other side. Why couldn't they be quiet? Didn't they know how much pain that he was in?

He realised that doctors were just plain old stupid people. That doctors were not who they thought, and said, that they were. They thought that people were in the hospitals to receive their treatment, and that because of that, the doctors were the most important people in the world, so they could treat anyone like bullshit if they wanted to. They could make people feel as uncomfortable as they wanted to, and it wouldn't matter. Doctors thought that they were always doing their best. Never mind their clouded judgement, and horrible bedside manner. They didn't care that he was in pain. As long as he was fixed.

Stiles heard a voice In the distance. Well, it may not have been very far in the distance, but he knew that he was hearing a voice. He couldn't place the voice, even though it sounded very familiar. He couldn't place the mellow English nouns, nor the sigh that came after whatever the man had said. Yes, it was definitely a man, but he could not place who it was. Even though he felt like he should be able to.

Everything went black once again. No one probably even noticed him slipping out of consciousness. They probably hadn't even known that he was conscious in the first place. Stupid doctors.

He found himself in a place that was dark. A place that he had been in before. It was like the place that the  nogitsune had sent him in his dream. It was the mental hospital basement. He remembered that, even though he didn't want to. He remembered having the animal trap cling to his leg, and his screams not being heard by anyone. Because back then it was all in his head. It was probably in his head now, but just one thing was that it still felt real. Just like when he was there the first time. It felt utterly real, and he wasn't sure how he could deny that.

All he could do was wonder. Was he doing the right thing? Was he absolutely sure that just sitting there in the dark was the right thing. Wallowing away. He would have checked his fingers. Made sure that he had the right amount. Made sure that it was not a dream. But it was too dark. He wasn't even sure how he knew that it was the same basement. It was still too dark to see anything.

Stiles shivered. He felt the muscles in his knees spasm, just like they did when he was too bored to do anything, and just sat somewhere. It happened a lot when he didn't take his Adderall. His ADHD came back, as strong as ever, and his knees spasmed. But now, he was sure that the doctors would have given him Adderall. They wouldn't be stupid enough not to read his prescriptions. Then what were his knees doing spasming?

Stiles heard someone scream. It was a muffled scream, as though they'd done it into a pillow. He could have gotten up to investigate the scream, but he couldn't be bothered. He had more important things to do.

Something about the place made him weak on the inside, and hearing someone in pain made him struggle as much as anyone would struggle in that kind of situation. He struggled, not because of fear, but because of the unknown. Again, not fear of the unknown, but the deep unsettled feeling in his stomach that  _something was wrong._ He just had the feeling that something was going to go completely wrong, and that he was going to be hurt when it did. It wasn't fear. He was discontent.

There's other things that occur when someone is locked up without being able to get out of whatever situation they somehow felt themselves fall into. How many times can someone go into the same situation and continue getting themselves locked into it? How many times can a person continuously doubt themselves, even though they've managed the task and completed it before? Stiles knew all these things. He knew the logic behind every task that he did, and he knew that the logic he was trying to use was perhaps not exactly sound. It happened occasionally. No matter how smart someone was, they were going to make some mistakes some times in their life. This was the same for Stiles. And being uncomfortable with the position that he was in did not help in the slightest.

Stiles was the kind of person who would take every little piece of information that someone had and use it to the fullest he could. However, when he was trying to collect that information himself, he often found himself in trouble, and had to be saved by other people who had actual powers, strong enough to pull him out of the deep. However, this time, he wasn't sure that anyone would be able to do that. This didn't feel the same as all of those times. This time, he felt absolutely helpless.

When Stiles was a kid, he was absolutely afraid of the dark. He'd told his dad, especially after his mother had died, that if he didn't leave the light on in the hallway, and leave his door ajar, then he would not be able to sleep. Sure, Stiles could not sleep without the open door, back then, but he had learnt to over come his fear, even if it had taken months and months of Scott's help.

Now, however, he could feel that fear creeping up on him. He could feel that fear seeping into his skin, and taking him over. None of his fear barriers were working. Not thinking of happy memories. Not thinking of how his mother's arms felt wrapped around his body. Nothing was working. Stiles felt like he was in hell. Everything was about to cave in on him.

His hands were shaking in front of him, and he couldn’t do anything about it. In his mind, he knew that he was having a panic attack. Everything was closing in around him. He needed to breathe. He needed to... Stiles began counting his breathing patterns, and making sure that he was breathing so that he could safely get through the attack, just like the doctors had taught him when he was really young. It wasn't working.

He heard knocking in the distance.

He shivered. Someone was coming, but he could not stop shaking. He couldn't stop it. He tried. He needed something to bring him back to earth. He thought of Scott, and it didn't work. He thought of the time when he was in the locker room, and Scott was turning into a werewolf right after he had been bitten. It didn't work. He thought of the time where they went into the ice, and they were connected to the nemeton, and he thought of being held down in the water, and trying to help, but that didn't work. Finally, he tried one last thing. The oni knife going through his chest, and Derek and Scott watching.

It worked.

Stiles wasn't sure whether it was Derek or Scott that made it happened. Immediately, he had thought that it was Scott. But then, he thought about what exactly this had achieved before. He was sure that the difference between him saving Scott's life, and Scott being unable to save his life would have a similar affect, but then, why did the first one not work, then?

It took him a while to settle on the fact that it may have been Derek that actually pulled him out of it. He realised that it was probably the fact that he had thought that Derek had always hated him, but he had appeared sad when Stiles had been dying. He had a lowered face, and his eyes appeared droopy. He was turned, in the heat of the moment, but in that moment, Stiles realised that Derek actually  _cared._

The darkness was still around him. But now, Stiles had stopped shaking. Now, he was in his right mind. Now, he realised that he had to get out of the place. He had to pull himself together, and find a way out of the plac.e. Last time he had been in a place like that, the nogitsune had been messing with him. He had been within his head. He had not been in the real world. But now, Stiles didn't feel as though anyone was messing with him. He felt as though what was happening was totally real. However, he remembered that he had thought that the dream was there back then.

His hands clutched at nothing. They clutched at the thin air in front of him, the black air, the nothing. He realised that the room was bigger than he had thought, originally. He climbed up onto his legs, shaking through the pain from sitting on them. They'd been beneath him, and he had not noticed the aching through the panic. He thought that maybe he should of, because how could he be so stupid as to forget his place. How could he be so stupid as to forget that he needed to live. Even after what he was going through, he needed to live. How was he supposed to walk- to be agile if needed- with legs that pained him with every step. He was stupid. Everything about what he had been panicking was stupid.

Finally, as he brought his shaky legs across the darkened room, his hands that were outstretched touched rough brick. He breathed out with what he realised was relief, and realised that his panic attack was actually gone now. Now it felt like it was never there.

Stiles' palms fell flat against the cold wall, trying to feel for an exit. He could feel the bricks. Large, and rough. Stiles shivered with the thought of what kind of place has bricks as large as that. Not houses, that's for sure. Institutions did- they had nice big basements, with walls made out of huge bricks. School gyms did, but they always had some kind of light seeping into them. And lastly, Stiles realised that other places that had these kinds of bricks were sheds. Backyard sheds. He didn't know anyone who had sheds. He just remembered the one that his paternal grandparents had had before they died, and the one that he'd seen out the back of some guys house when he had followed his dad to work one day.

His hand finally fell through thin air, before it lands on something. Stiles hoped that the thud of his hand wasn't too loud. What if someone heard him? What if they thought that he was trying to escape- well, he was, but they didn't need to know that.

The door was small. It was a normal size door, albeit on the small side, and it was easy to find the cold door handle. Stiles gasped at the touch, the coolness beneath his fingers, and the slippery feel of the metallic door knob. He didn't know that he had missed it so much. Missed something that was just  _human._ A door knob, and the ability to open it. The ability to let himself free.

The air outside was cold, and Stiles realised immediately that it was night time. He realised that he was actually, finally outside. But then he asked himself how it could be, because he was sure that this was no kind of afterlife that he had ever told him about. He was sure that nothing was correct in what he was seeing. The night looked as though it did when he was alive. There was nothing special about it. It made him curious. Curious about the fact that this place was nothing like any religion's example of death. This was no heaven, and it was no Valhalla. It was no hell, and it was no hades. It confused his natural curiosity.

Stiles had found himself in what looked like a park. It looked like a nice little place that children would play in. It looked like the park in Beacon Hills. It looked like the little park that he and Scott would go to play as children. All except for one thing. It wasn't Beacon Hills. He knew that. The slide was red. The slide in Beacon Hills was yellow. Not just that, but everything about the place was different. The playground was backwards. The swings were too big. Everything was wrong.

He was not in Beacon Hills.

~*~

He probably looked like a teenage murderer, or drug addict, walking around town like he was doing. People probably saw him walking around at five in the morning, because he wasn't about to try and sleep in the middle of an unfamiliar place. He wasn't as stupid as that. He wasn't going to try that, and get raped or something. He had seen all of those news reels. He knew about the things that happened to people when they did that kind of thing. Also, he had no experience with sleeping out in the middle of nowhere, using nothing for comfort.

He saw the eyes of people as they drove past him that morning. He saw their stares, and their judging eyes following him in the subtle wind. His hair flickered, but it wasn't long enough to get in his way. He felt dirty, as though he needed a clean.

He couldn't go home. He didn't know how to get home. He didn't like confrontation. Sure, people thought that he was the type of person to never come down from any challenge. People expected him to work his way through it, because they thought thast that was what kind of person that he was. But he couldn't talk to people! He had told all of his friends that. That talking to people was some kind of madness that he never wanted to do.  _Especially with strangers._

None of the payphones that he'd tried had supported reverse dialling. First, he had to go into the horrible payphone rooms in the first place, but then he also had to venture into more because none of them did the thing that he needed them to do.

Eventually, Stiles gave into it. He realised that he would have to confront someone. He realised that he would have to confront someone about his problems, and that those problems would tell him to confront more people. People didn't like people, even if you were in a friendly neighbourhood, people didn't like to give up their luxuries, even if it were going to benefit other people.

He wandered into a gas station. There were people at the pumps, trying to do things, such as fill up their cars, and pay using their credit cards, because they also didn't like confronting people. They didn't like having to talk to people to pay their money for goods.

Stiles laughed on the inside, when he realised that they were just like him. That he was not alone in this as he thought.

Living was just a series of acting. People had to act to get through life. People had to pretend to be other things. People had to lie to get what they wanted. People had to pretend to do things that showed that they weren't sick. People wanted to do that, so that it appeared that they weren't different.

The world is full of people acting so that they can fit in. It's full of people lying. The way that people fit in is lies. And more lies are made from these lies. Everything is built from lies. Lies are the easiest way for people to get what they want, and if that is to fit in, then they can get that, too. People don't believe that they can be who they want to be in the world that they live in.

The noises in the gas station were welcome. It was early morning, but no one cared. They were going about their daily activities. It welcomed Stiles, because now he wasn't be stared at with strange eyes. They were too busy with their own things. It made Stiles a little bit ore comfortable with his confrontation. It made him look forward to getting the phone off of the guy in the gas station. He looked forward to dialling his father's number, and finally getting to talk to him. Tell him that he was trapped in that dark room, and  _dad, please come get me._

The lights flickered inside the gas station. Stiles could feel the headache coming on. He'd never liked fluorescent lights. They had simply felt too unnatural to him. They felt as though they were ripping through his flesh, and burning his insides. He could feel the pain seeping from his head through his body.

He felt guilty of something as he walked up to the counter. He wasn't buying anything. He wasn’t stealing anything. He just felt  _guilty._ Just like he felt guilty whe he was walking out of a Walmart, and he hadn't bought anything.

"Uhm, I'm stuck in this town, and I need to call somebody to come get me..." Stiles looked down nervously at his feet, "Do you have a phone that I could use?"

Stiles cursed at himself. He was too old to act all shy when he was approaching someone like that.

The man behind the counter looked at him curiously. He obviously didn't know what to think of someone like Stiles asking him for something like that. Obviously, the man didn't often have people asking him things like that, even if the town did seem like a fairly friendly one.

The man grimaced, after reading Stiles' face carefully. "You can use the company phone. Just don’t stay on it for long, or I'll get into trouble. And no funny business."

Stiles sighed with relief. He wasn't going to get into any trouble here. Everything was good. Everything was fabulous, in fact. He would be home to his dad in no time.

Except, there was one problem. When he dialled the numbers, someone else answered. It wasn't his dad. That wasn't his dad's voice. In fact, he didn't recognise that voice at all. "Hello, this is Logan, please leave a message after the tone."

Stiles was lucky that he didn't drop the phone right there and then. Why was a stranger answering his dad's phone?

He hung up immediately, not wanting the stranger to have a random message full of commotion on his phone. Something didn't feel right. Luckily, they sold phone books at the gas station.

Unlucky for him- it appeared that Beacon Hills was not in it. He had an inkling that maybe, just maybe, this meant that it didn’t exist.

Stiles' heart sunk deeper than he thought a heart could ever sink. He had been right. Something supernatural  _had_ happened. He knew that nothing normal ever happened in Beacon Hills, or maybe in this case, outside of Beacon Hills. His chances of anything were now utterly ruined.

 


	2. Some More of the Beginning

Derek Hale loved being a werewolf. In fact, there was not any reason that he would like to change into a human. Maybe, if there was some kind of power that could not be explained, and was killing off only werewolves, no matter how powerful they were.

One thing about being a werewolf, was the fact that he was more powerful than any other person in the world. Except, of course, for the alphas of all the werewolf packs in the world. He didn't care, though. He knew that he was pretty damn powerful, and now that the alpha pack had left, nothing really mattered any more.

Everything had gone wrong when the nogitsune came. It had begun controlling Stiles, and it had made him really mad. Stiles was so helpless. Stiles was such a person who couldn't do any harm. Sure, he may be one of the smartest and most observant people that he had ever met, but Stiles couldn't punch someone out. Stiles couldn't make someone have to go to the hospital. Not unless it involved something to do with chemical reactions, or what not. Derek didn't know. He had failed chemistry in high school. In fact, he had rarely attended high school as it was. And he had quit as soon as the Hale family fire had occurred. No one wanted to see him any more. Not since he became the freak.

But Stiles had become one of the most important people in his life. Stiles had bece one of the most influencial people in Derek's world. In wasn’t anything that anybody could snort at. Sure, Stiles probably thought that Derek hated him, even after the incident with the Kanima, and almost drowning, but Derek didn't. The reality was the Derek was just scared to do anything, because he thought that people would want to do things. People wanted to kill him. IF he got too close to anybody, then people would think that those people would be Derek's soft spot. Bt e didn't want them to do that. He didn't want them to think that they could get to him that easily. Because there was something wrong with that. Those people  _were_ his soft spot. Those people would bring him down if anything happened to them. Those people included his entire pack. And part of that pack was Stiles, even if STiles disagreed.

Derek was there when Stiles had been stabbed by the oni. Derek had stood still in fear - in shock. He hadn't expected it. He didn't think that anything could kill Stiles. He thought that everyone would always protect Stiles. Because Stiles was the one that always protected them. He wasn't even protected them in the way that they protected him. But he was the brains. He could evaluate the situations so much better than anybody else in the group.

But something else had happened. Something that Derek, Scott, and even Stiles, didn't see happening in any time in the future. Stiles' body disappeared. But it didn't disappear until after Derek had watched in awe as it stiched itself together. Derek and Scott had thought, both in their heads, that maybe the oni weren't strong enough. Maybe the nogitsune would return, and they would be destined to die. But then the body disappeared. They had had no idea where it had gone.

When Derek had first met Stiles, he had believed that something was different about him. He had believed that Stiles may be some kind of supernatural creature. That maybe, just maybe, Stiles had witch blood, or maybe his mother was half fairy or something. Derek wasn't entirely sure which supernatural beings were real, and which were mythical. However, he had felt that Stiles was magical. Maybe it was something stupid, like how he was the true vessel for an evil nogitsune. Derek cursed himself, because if that was it, then he might have been able to stop what happened, if only he knew what it was.

Derek had felt sad when Stiles' body disappeared. The oni disappeared as well, and he and Scott were left as shocked as ever, and feeling as though they were about to fall into an abyss-like part of their brain. As though they might never see the light of day again.

Scott didn't know how he was going to tell the sheriff about what had happened. He could imagine it. He could imagine the crazy look on the sheriff's face when the man realised that he was now alone. That now, he had no son, he had no wife, so what was he going to do with himself? Scott knew that Stiles was the one that kept his father alive. Scott knew that Stiles was the one that stopped his father from going into an irrational state of alcoholism. Scott was afraid for what John would do. Would he fall into that pit of desperation that he was so close to falling into when his wife died? Or would he cling to the only sense of normality that he had left had the station? Scott really wished that Stiles hadn't died. It seemed like such a waste, and so many people were going to miss him. More people than Stiles would ever realise.

~*~

Stiles wondered what people were thinking back at home. HE wondered if people were thinking about that one boy who didn't know much about anything, and who thought that it was funny to always be the silly one in the room. He thought that they wouldn't. He was pretty sure that what had happened to him was final, No one would care about him. His dad may shed a tear or two. He might even fall into his drinking habits for a day or two. But Stiles knew his dad, and the town all too well. Someone would cover up Stiles' death. They'd blame it on the description that people had already given of the oni. The town would gather round his father, and make him forget that he ever had a wife or a child.

Stiles almost shed a tear at the thought that his dad might forget him. That his dad might become some kind of robot. He didn't like that thought. He didn't like that thought one little bit. What if his dad remarried? He wanted his dad to be happy, but he didn't want his dad forgetting him. He was supposed to be his dad's number one. The person who was always going to be there to cheer his father up, and make sure that he wouldn't fall into any dumb habits again.

It took Stiles a while to think about Derek. He sifted through many of his friends before he finally came to this particular one. Derek was the guy that Stiles had held in the water, whilst he was paralysed, and Jackson, looking like an overgrown lizard, was trying to kill them. Stiles forgot how much he cared for Derek.

Many people died in Beacon Hills, but he couldn't imagine how he'd feel if Derek, or any of the pack died. He had felt horrible when Erica and Boyd had died. He couldn't even imagine if Scott, Derek or Isaac were to die. His heart would be broken into such small pieces, that he wouldn't even be sure that something like a drinking problem could fix them.

Stiles was worn out. It seemed that his father didn't exist in this place. It seemed that no one existed in this place. It seemed, in fact, that Stiles was alone. He didn't like this one bit. He needed to find something to do. Was there someone like him in this world? Was there someone who had is face? If this truly was a different dimension, then shouldn't thhere be someone with his face? Or something. He needed to do something. He couldn't just stay in this godforsaken town. Not if he wanted to survive.

Then again, that might be exactly what he needs to do.

Stiles wanted to do things that other people could not do. but now he had no record of himself. Now he had no record of his education. If he was going to have to stay in this universe, then he would have to try and get some kind of record for himself. And what better way to do that than to go to the hospital... to pretend that he has amnesia.

~*~

In a night so dark, and a ight in the late, Stiles didn't expect so many cars to be about. HE iddn't expect so many people to be driving around like they didn't care about their sleeping patterns, but somehow, inbetween all the cars, he managed to find a hospital. It wasn' ta very large looking hospital, and he knows that not every town had a hospital, but this one did. It was kind of like Beacon Hills in a way. It was small, and it looked a little bit like everyone in the town knew each other. It looked like they had kind of seen each other before, even if they had never spoken.

There was no one in the emergency department that night. He had found out what town he was in. He had been right. He had been to that town before. He had been to that place when he was younger. He had been to that place with his father before. Camping trips during the summer holidays, it was. He remembered it. They had had so much fun. It was right after his mum had died, and his dad was a mess, but he was still being nice to Stiles. He was still trying to stop it. He hadn't quite begun such a bad drinking problem yet. It was going to, and Stiles wished that he could have seen it coming, because no ten year old should have to deal with that. No ten year old should have to see any of their parental figures in a messy state like that.

Stiles knew that claiming amnesia was probably something that he shouldn't do. He knew that it was probably really mean to anybody who actually had had amnesia in the past, but he couldn't help it. He needed to try and fit into the world, without breaking the law.

He went up to the woman at the counter. He figured that that was what people did in emergency rooms when they didn't know nurses that worked there. “Excuse me, miss.” He announced, trying to sound as polite and resigned as possible. “I bumped my head.”

 

The woman glanced at him, as though he had said something in Spanish, and she quite obviously didn't speak Spanish, because they lived in the United States of America for gods sake.

She flicked her blonde hair back with her index finger, bending it so that the her ring shone into his eyes. “Look, honey, you don't look like you got no injury, so step aside and let some bloke who has a broken leg in line.” Her accent was southern. It sounded Georgian, but he couldn't be entirely sure. For all he knew, the woman might have been from Alabama or Texas.

“I can't remember who I am!” He shouted. He scrunched up his face, trying to look like he was about to go into hysterics. He didn't think it was too great, but it seemed to do the trick. The woman's eyes widened in surprise at the outburst.

The woman then introduced herself. She became suddenly polite, as though just because he was hurt, it meant that he was worth being polite to. What was it that hurt people had over her? Was it something along the lines of that she had always been taught to be nice to people who were hurt, but she had always been taught to be careful around strangers. Because, hell, strangers weren't family, and they weren't worth being sincere to.

~*~

Sometimes Stiles thinks that people should just mind their own business, but he guessed that questions was part of doctor's duties. If he wanted to pull this off, then he had to answer them, and stick to the same story. He thought that that would be easy, but this doctor was really drilling him. He supposed that if he blurted out with his name, or even a friend's name, then he would be discovered immediately. But that wasn't what happened. He didn't give himself up. He happened, in fact, to sit through the questions without giving a single things up about himself.

He told them that, yes, he did remember what his times tables were, he did remember how to even do bloody quadratics, and that was one of the most stupid things in that they ever decied to teach in any school. He even decided that telling them that the playground that he “woke up in” seemed vaguely familiar. It was only a half-lie.

They looked at him weirdly, and he knew that this was all wrong. He knew that this was not how amnesia worked. People didn't usually just forget everything about their life, but keep all their knowledge. He'd done some research on amnesia for a school research asssignment. He had wanted to see how much about it was factual, and how much about it was mythical, and he had found that in many cases, the films, and fictional stories are all wrong. The doctors were probably looking at him right then as though he had grown an extra head.

~*~

Derek wanted to know where the hell Stiles' body had gone to. Derek couldn't even smell Stiles anywhere. Bodies don't just disappear. Stiles shouldn't just disappear. Derek should be able to know where Stiles is  _all_ the time, so what one earth was going on?

He wasn't even sure where to look. They had already asked Kira's mum if she knew what was going on, but she didn't know anything about it. She didn't even know what the hell to do about it. She was supposed to be their resident kitsune know it all, but she never seemed to know anything. She never seemed to actually be able to help their cause. She would reply with an eye roll, like we were totally stupid for even thinking that she should know about that.

After Kira's mother, they had tried Deaton, thinking that he was sure to know something. He may be a more werewolf orientated intellect, but he was still some kind of witch-type thing, and therefore, there was a chance, was there not? 

However, no one that they asked seem to know anything. A body just shouldn't be able to disappear without any powers behind it. Sure, there are spells that witches could use to make things like that occur, but there weren't any witches around that they had heard about. Deaton would know about it if there were.

Derek tried not to show people that he really missed the strange kid bugging him. He missed the intelligence of someone who didn't really care about the world. Someone who didn't care at all about the way that someone thought about him. Derek missed that attitude. No one else seemed to have it. None of the kids around Scott did. Derek thought that maybe Scott, who had been around Stiles for so many years would have soaked some of that up, but nothing of Stiles was seen in Scott. Derek cared about what had happened to the kid.


	3. End of the Beginning

Stiles sat in a chair. No one at the hospital could tell why he had lost any memory. Apparently he looked as though he was telling the truth, because no one asked him otherwise. They told him that they could not find any faults in his brain, but they would try their hardest to continue looking for him. If he wasn't acting as though he had amnesia, he would have laughed as hard as he could, because it was the truth. There was nothing on his brain that could have caused memory loss, because there was no memory loss.  
The room that he was sitting in was white, like most rooms in hospitals. It looked fine. It looked like a perfect image of a hospital, if hospitals could be considered find in any form. He wasn’t sure how any of this was going to pan out. He hadn't really planned it, but he hoped that they'd find a person that looked like him in this world some time soon. He hoped that they'd find someone's life that he could take.   
"Look, honey, this is your room." Stiles looked around again, at the nurse's gesture. Her arm was outstretched, as though she expected him to walk around it. He didn't. He didn't need to go looking through anything. There was a bed, there was an attached bathroom, and he was lucky to have a very small wardrobe, to put nothing in except the clothes that he came in.  
Stiles felt sick, almost. He felt as though he was going to collapse at any time soon. He wondered what someone who had amnesia would say. He wondered if they would question their state a lot. He wondered if they would ask for a name. He wondered what the hell would happen if he did ask for a name.  
So he did. He came out with it. "Can you give me a name?" The nurse looked startled. She looked as though she didn't know what to say. Stiles wondered if she had ever dealt with anything like this before. Had she ever met someone who didn't remembered who they were? Had she ever tried to do anything about it?  
She smiled, her eyes relaxing to their previous state. Stiles wondered if she was embarrassed about her reaction to his question. He would be if it were him.  
"Sorry." She told him. Stiles chuckled. He was right. She was embarrassed. "How about I bring you a list? You can pick a name, for now. We'll find out who you are, soon."  
Stiles breathed deeply with relief. He was happy that that was all she said. He didn't want her to question anything about his act. In fact, he didn't want her to question anything about what was happening to him. "I really wish that I could use the internet, right now."  
Stiles didn't know how any of this memory loss type thing worked. Sure, he'd read books about things, but he didn't exactly know these things. He even suspected that the doctors suspected that he was lying. Who gets a kind of amnesia where they don't remember their name, or anything about themselves, and everyone around them, but somehow they remember the internet, and websites that they use. Stiles thinks that maybe he made a mistake talking about the internet to that nurse. He hoped that she didn't tell any of the doctors.  
After the nurse left, Stiles was simmering in his own juices. Would this work out? Would he ever get back to his own world? Sure, this one was close, but if he couldn't contact his dad, then how was he supposed to live in this world. At the moment, he didn't even have an identity! How was he supposed to live through that? It was ridiculous. Everything about what was happening was ridiculous. He couldn't believe it. He just wanted to go home. He just wanted to laugh with Scott. He wanted to see Lydia once again, and realise that he didn't even find her that attractive anymore. He wanted to talk to Derek and call him a sour wolf once again. Didn't he deserve even that?  
Something about the room was making him feel sick. It made him feel like he was going to throw up onto the perfectly shiny clear floor. He knew that it was their job in hospitals, to look after the sick, but he wasn't supposed to be being that type of sick. He was supposed to have some brain dilemna going on, not sickness in the stomach. Although, he supposed that patients that have things like brain tumours and things would also get sick in the stomach some time.   
He thought that the thing making him feel sick might be the lights. The bright fluorescents probably made all the patients feel as though they were about to go into the burning pits of hell. In fact, Stiles couldn't imagine that these bright lights would ever not make him feel sick like that. Whoever decided that those were the lights that they should use in a hospital should probably go try and sit in that hospital feeling sick in the stomach for only ten minutes. Maybe they'll burn in whatever kind of hell exists.  
~*~  
"Hello! Son, wake up."  
Stiles felt fingers on his cheek. It made him shiver all over. He didn't want to open his eyes. He didn't want to talk to anyone. He wanted to stay in his mind. Stay in the memories of his world. In the memories of his friends, and his father. He wanted to stay in the memories of he and Scott being idiots in the days before he was a werewolf. He knew that this woman wasn't going to let him to this, though. So, even though it was against his will, he opened his eyes, with a mumble of something that neither he, nor the nurse that walked in, could understand.  
"I brought you that list of names that you wanted. They also said that they have begun looking for who you are. IF you're lucky, they'll find out in less than a week."  
Stiles liked the woman. She was the kindest person that he had come across in this hospital. She actually cared about him, even though he hadn't even known her name before she finally walked in wearing a name tag that day.  
"Thank you, Lucy." Stiles gave her a curt smile. "When is breakfast?"  
She laughed, obviously finding something about that very amusing. "Half an hour." She shouted over her shoulder, whilst walking out of the room.  
Stiles was left with a piece of paper printed with about fifty names. He wondered where the names had all come from, because they weren't all extremely popular names. They weren't names that Stiles had to know someone with one because they were so popular. No, it looked as though the nurse had actually taken some time to compile the list. Stiles didn't even know that Cillian was a name! But there was one name on the list that definitely caught Stiles' attention. That name was Derek.  
Stiles was very tempted by the name. Would it matter if they called him Derek? What if something happened, and he ended up with the name for the rest of his life? Could he stand that? Could he stand people calling him the name of someone from his previous life for the rest of his life? Would that be weird? Stiles decided upon the name anyway. It was familiar enough, that he figured that he would answer to it easily.  
But right at that moment, there was something a little bit more important on his mind. He wasn't sure how the hell he was supposed to live without being able to use the television in the room. Why did they make patients pay for television? Was an antenna on the roof seriously as expensive as five dollars an hour? Why did they make sick people pay for that kind of thing? Seriously. Stiles could even be sated with something as simple as a book.  
In fact, Stiles was wondering how on earth they would be allowed to let him out of the hospital. He realised that, he may have actually been rather rash in letting himself do something without thinking about the possible consequences. He realised that he hadn't thought about how dire it could be. That perhaps they might not even find out anything about someone who was supposedly a parallel version of him. It might be one of those types of parallel worlds where he was not even born.  
The first time that the nurse called him Derek, Stiles wanted to laugh so hard. He told her that it still didn't feel right, but for some reason the name still called to him. Stiles was totally going to visit some amnesia patients once this was all over, and see what they actually acted like. Stiles realised that things were different with each person's experience with an illness, but he felt that he was being way too inaccurate, and that he was going to be caught.  
"Look, Derek." The nurse said. Stiles wondered whether it was going to be bad news, or if the woman was just horrible at doing anything in her job. It wasn't Lucy, and this woman wasn't wearing a name tag. It made him feel kind of horrible. To see a woman who he didn't know the name of, yet he was calling him by a name, that he was pretending was totally what he wanted to be called, and yet, this woman didn't batter an eyelid when Stiles put a grimace on his face at the tone of her voice.  
"You have nothing wrong with you, as far as we can tell. We know that amnesia patients can have a variety of things wrong with them, but we're going to put you in a home outside of the hospital. It has to be a foster carer, Derek. I know you're seventeen, but that’s still underage, and we cannot let you run around with no name, and no guardian."  
Stiles nodded, secretly wanting to rip the woman's throat out. Why couldn't she just tell him the truth? He knew that she was lying. He knew that she had no idea what the hell she was talking about, and he knew that they'd found something. What they'd found might not necessarily be medical, in fact, he had an inkling that it was something to do with his identity, but she should tell him the truth. He may be a minor, but he was almost an adult, and he would punch someone out before they would be allowed to say that he could not take care of himself. In fact, for years, that was all that he did. As well as taking care of several idiotic werewolf teenagers, and an older one that he still didn't know the age of. Who, was ironically named Derek.  
~*~  
Derek was having no luck with anything to do with Stiles. He was having no luck tracing down the body, and he was having just as much luck getting through to Kira's mum on his suspicion on all things to do with any possible parallel universes. Derek had thought that he might be able to find some stupid theory in Stiles research on his computer, so he did. he thought that the might find some kind of holy grail that would bring the strange teenager back, and he might not have found it, but he would not give up on the possibilities.  
There was just one thing about Derek's theory of parallel universes, and that was that he had seemingly attracted a strange woman, who Derek decided to be weary about. He thought that something might be different about her. In fact, he kind of sensed it. He thought that the woman might in fact be some other kind of supernatural creature. Maybe she was something like the darach. Maybe she would be a nicer kind of it.  
The woman had come up to him in the library. It turns out that there had already been extensive research into the possibility of parallel universes. He was lucky enough to be in a library where they liked to stock those kinds of books.  
The woman had actually been a library helper. She was there to help him, but instantly became interested in his research project. She first saw what he was researching when he picked a book off of the shelf, only to see that it was not what he thought it was. She looked at what he'd picked off, and carefully introduced herself as "Carla. Carla Doan." Derek could hear her heartbeat through her jacket. He thought that it might calm him, because women just didn't talk to him. He was Derek Hale, the weird guy whose family was burned to ash and dust by some psycho.  
"Are you looking for books about parallel universes? I know a few good ones." She grinned. Her teeth were pearly white. Any celebrity would be jealous of them. Her lips were a deep, luscious red, that Derek dearly just wanted to touch, and the skin around them looked so supple, and such a pale white, that he just wanted to run his fingers along her cheek, and watching as the colour changes, as the blood runs to the cheek below his fingers.  
That was how Derek became attached to yet another strange woman, who may or may not be a devilishly vengeful supernatural creature. He wished that Stiles could be there to research her. Especially since the woman had given him her number.  
She looked at him, like he was a piece of meat, and it made him feel as though he was being watched. If she was some kind of spy for anyone, then she was a horrible actress, but then again, she might just be of that type of watchful person. Derek couldn't be totally sure with anything right then. It made him angry. He had to watch all of his senses carefully, to make sure that she was not some kind of weird spy person. Though, who would pick her for a spy? Did they know Derek's past, and they were just trying to be ironic? Maybe Derek was just being too paranoid.  
~*~  
Stiles woke up in the middle of the night. They hadn't moved him from the mental ward yet. They told him that he would be going to a foster house outside of the hospital, but no one had spoken about it since the no-name nurse. It was strange, he thought, that they weren't discussing his own condition with him, but then again, he realised that this was a weird condition, for them. Mainly because it wasn't a condition in the first place so they couldn't find anything in his brain that showed his condition.  
Waking up in the middle of the night in a hospital is pretty much the same as waking up during the day, but darker. There a flickering lights everywhere, and there is beeping, and strange noises. There's old people coughing and voices in the distance. But most importantly, they had given him a room that had a patient controllable light. He praised whoever had been in charge of the ward design, because they had allowed him to be able to turn on that light, so that he could read something. Unfortunately, that something was only a horrible magazine that one of the nurses had offered him. He had taken it. Probably because he was bored. Maybe because he wanted to know if there were any other differences in the world.  
The magazine was mostly like all magazines. There were many advertisements dotted throughout it, with the few articles that they actually managed to put in. Stiles didn't want to read girly magazines, but he ended up finding himself at the television section of the magazine anyway. He figured that the easiest way to find out if anything was different, was to see the TV shows that were in the world.  
He got really mad, because it only had cable shows on it. He didn't really give a shit about MTV, but he read along, anyway.  
Something about the entry of a show called 'Teen Wolf' made him stop in his tracks. Why? Because it had Scott's name there.  
Teenager Scott McCall's life changes for the worst when he gets bitten. Now he has to struggle through life as nothing more than a Teen Wolf.  
Stiles almost screamed. He would have woken up the entire hospital with surprise, but a hand slapped over his mouth before he could. Someone stood before him, and as he looked up at who he was, he would have screamed once again. It was him. There was another Stiles Stilinski standing right in front of him.  
“I am Dylan O'Brien.” Stiles stared in wonder. “I am this world's you.”  
When Stiles was younger, his mother told him something. That something made him cringe a lot. She told him that the wind was always going to be behind him, because he was smart enough to always be ahead. Tit made him cringe because he didn't always want to be ahead. He wanted to be able to admire people. He wanted to be able to learn from people, and he didn't feel that he would be able to learn for himself. He felt that if he were ever ahead, then it would be some kind of false start. He would never be ahead if he weren't cheating. Being ahead didn't make any sense to him. He didn't think that it would ever work in his power.  
Now, however, he knew that he was not ahead at all. He was so far behind. This world's him; Dylan O'Brien, apparently knew so much more than he was willing to tell. Apparently, in this world, Stiles was behind even himself. He was ahead in this world. It just wasn't him, per say, but this society's equivalent of him.  
Something sizzled inside of him when he touched Dylan on the hand. It was only on the hand, and Stiles had seen Doctor Who. Who knew that there was a possibility of paradoxes, but he needed to make sure that Dylan was real, and not a figment of his imagination. Apparently, he was real. That just made Stiles even more uncomfortable.  
Stiles lived by the rule of “all magic is just science we don't understand yet.” He had heard the rule the first time on the TV when he was very young. It had stuck in his mind. It wasn't until Scott was turned into a werewolf that he thought about it once again. Because werewolves were obviously some kind of magic. That was the first time that he encountered any magic in real life. If you didn't count bad magic shows where Stiles knew everything that the magicians were trying to do. It was hard to fool a Stilinski.  
But this was a whole new level of science that Stiles didn't understand. He had seen theories. He had seen so many theories dotted across the internet. He had seen so many documentaries of people talking about pseudo science. He knew the aspects of it that people couldn't explain. He knew that those were all that we needed for people to do actual magic. It was Stiles's goal in life to be the first person to understand the science of magic, and be the first person to utilise it- the first human to utilise it. He knew that he could be. He knew that he could be that person that makes magic available for people to use.  
Stiles was the kind of person that would try and keep the fact that he knew how to use magic, and knew the sciences of it a secret. Although, he figured that people would probably find out anyway. He figured that that was what people did. They kept on digging until they found what they wanted to know. It was the nature of the human race. It was curiosity. If a person wasn't curious, then they were strangely defying the laws of humanity. Stiles shivered at the actual thought of it.  
He'd actually been thinking that when he went to college, and was given the tools to scientifically study magic, that he would need access to magic, so he'd thought about actually getting help from Deaton. Deaton knew magic. Stiles knew that he would be able to find something to learn in his brain stash. In fact, Stiles even had the suspicion that Deaton was a witch, or whatever the male equivalent was. Wizard? Warlock? One of those. He couldn't be sure which.  
He kind of wished that he knew some kind of magic. Because if he did, then he might know a way to get out of what he was stuck in. He may have been able to force infromation out of Dlan. That would have been nice. Everything would be made easier with magic. He was upset that he hadn't asked Deaton earlier. He could imagine how much easier it would have been to get out of that dark room with magic. How much easier it would have been to fit in, and not have to pretend that he had amnesia.  
“Look, Stiles. We are going to my house, and that is where you will find something special. You will be wondering right now, what an earth could be so special that something made you come to our world. It is because a world is in danger.” Dylan saw Stiles's flabbergasted face, and began to explain. “It's not my world – this one – and it's not your world – the one where you came from. It's another world.”  
He didn't know what to think. In this world they had parallel universe jumping technologies? In this world, the multiverse theory had been proven to be true? Stiles had so many questions, but before he could ask them, Dylan pulled him towards a car that was parked outside of the hospital.


	4. Prologue to the Sequel (or Epilogue to this one)

Dylan's house was cold. It seemed that he hadn't been in there for a while. Stiles had expected someone Dylan's age not to have such a big, expensive looking house. Although, Stiles didn't know what to expect any more.

His question was answered by the said devil. “I'm an actor in this world. Though, I do realise this is weird or you. Apparently, I play you on TV.”

Stiles nodded as though he totally understood. “So this,” Stiles pointed at an ironic looking swirl painted on the wall, “is the portal?”

Dylan nodded. “Good luck, Stiles.”

Stiles placed his hand on the wall, but felt nothing. His breath almost faltered, before he realised that maybe he shouldn't let it. So from fear, he did nothing but step through the wall, seemingly ending up standing back home.


End file.
